Creating the National Health Service: Aneurin Bevan and the Medical Lords

The NHS is often seen as a natural development of previous legislation, such as the 1911 National Insurance Act. The 1911 Act, however, enabled visits to general practitioners by insured workers, while the NHS entitled all Britons to medical care in and out of hospitals. The Labour Party had never embraced such a comprehensive national system, neither had the Beveridge Report. In 1945 Bevan therefore had little precedent to guide his creation of the NHS. This book reveals the importance of Lord Moran’s expert medical advice for Bevan: The Bevan-Moran alliance also led to bitter opposition from Thomas Lord Horder, Britain’s most distinguished consulting physician, and the book charts how he became the most important medical foe of the NHS.